Fractal Design Array Review 8

Fractal Design Array Review

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Value and Conclusion

  • The Fractal Design Array will set you back around 165 Euros including taxes.
  • Seven hard drives in a small form factor
  • Excellent construction quality - Lian Li
  • Nice, understated looks
  • Easy board installation
  • Silent fan
  • 300W SFX PSU included
  • Extremely compact for a 6+1 bay NAS or server
  • Pricey
  • No optical drive bay - not even slim line
  • No front I/O
  • No HDD LED
  • Power supply not 80Plus
  • Nearly impossible to reach 2.5" bay
  • Very simple interior
  • Could be very frustrating to assemble
The Fractal Design Array caters to a very specific user. It aims to be the ultimate compact NAS or server. While the specifications certainly impress with silence, included 300W power supply and the ability to install up to six 3.5" and one 2.5" hard drives, it does seem to cut on accessibility and ease of installation. Clocking in at around 165 Euros makes it by no means a cheap investment, especially when you take into account that a SFX PSU with 80Plus and 350W will set you back a mere 45 Euros, essentially resulting in a bare case priced at around 120 Euros. While the exterior understating look is excellent and perfect for the purpose, it quickly becomes apparent that the same does not hold true for the interior. While I can still understand the fact that there is no optical drive bay present, as a NAS would not require such, Fractal Design could have still easily fitted the Array with one or at least with some front USB connectivity so that a user could easily connect an external unit to the chassis for the software setup of their NAS or server. Also the lack of a hard drive LED seems weird, as you can stuff so many drives in there and would like to see if drives are accessed or not. It feels like that Fractal has not really put a lot of thought into the interior in regards of usability when assembling everything. This is something I would expect from a chassis of this price class. The most blatantly obvious issue is the extremely difficult - if not nearly impossible to access 2.5" bay, which does serve an important purpose as the drive to hold the OS, so that all six 3.5 inch bays can be used for storage. The Fractal Design Array tries to cater to a specific market, which it does in terms of specifications as it is the only ITX chassis with the ability to hold a whooping six 3.5 inch hard drives, but they still have a long way to go for a perfect product, especially for the price they have set for the unit.
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Dec 25th, 2024 12:51 EST change timezone

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